


Bolshoi Brooklyn, Baby!

by arkasha1983



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkwardness, Ballet, Drunk Napoleon, F/F, Gaby Teller ships Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin (kind of), Gaby and Illya eat spaghetti at 1:00 AM in the morning, Gaby has a girlfriend, Gen, Illya wears crop-tops, Illya will break lots of hearts in New York etc., M/M, Napoleon recites Shakespeare, New York, Oblivious Illya, References to Drugs, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-01 09:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14517921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkasha1983/pseuds/arkasha1983
Summary: New York, 1985.Soviet ballet dancer Illya Kuryakin moves to Brooklyn to improve his craft and not much else. His new-found neighbour is Gaby Teller, an extroverted psychic who has more problems with her best friend Napoleon Solo than with her own girlfriend. Napoleon Solo, in his defence, is a preppy Upper East Side drop-out who keeps getting dumped by his boyfriends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oook, so basically i have no idea what is going on here. i'll just stick to the summary is all (rated as T cause stuff will probably do what stuff usually do).  
> i just know i want this story to be as light, goofy, fun and carefree as HUMANLY POSSIBLE (that's probably gonna be a huge challenge, as i easily tend to get Morbid & Dark). feel free to suggest whatever crosses your mind, i'm inspired by almost anything.
> 
> PS: i tried to pick the dumbest title i could think of. i personally love it.

On July 17th, 1985, Gabrielle “Gaby” Teller, 27 years old, German descent, New Yorker by accident and telepathic by choice, panting, clumsy and chronically unpunctual, adjusts her right earbud, Sony Walkman tucked tight in the back pocket of her denim shorts, and then locks the door of her tiny apartment on 7th Ave, Brooklyn. She heads out in the scorching sunlight of 2:30 PM for the usual afternoon shift at the Pink Moon Psychic Shop, two blocks and a turn to the right away.

Or at least, she _tries_ to.

A tall pair of blue jeans blocks the hallway leading to the mezzanine. The legs belong to a couple of heavy cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, hiding the view on Gaby’s reason of yet another late start at work.

 _MO Ther f UC Ker_ , Gaby yells in her head.

It was Cuban kids playing ball on the sidewalk last week, and the week before it was her girlfriend making a fuss over the fact Gaby didn’t seem to appreciate her new Annie Lenox’s haircut.

_“I’m not saying I don’t like it, it’s just that you look like Rosemary’s Baby.”_

_“Rosemary’s baby’s mother was Rosemary, you dumbass!”_

_“Liz, you don’t even like Eurythmics.”_

_“How dare you, Gaby! I’m hanging up.”_

And then of course, there’s always Napoleon showing up at her doorstep at the last minute, usually in tears over his latest break-up.

_“Napoleon, how many times have I told you not to hook up with West Berlin clubbers. They only want your money for more cocaine.”_

_“But I’m broke! He broke my heart!”_

_“Ask your dad if he can spare a couple of millions for you to get through the week. And find yourself a good Catholic boy like yourself.”_

Today, the source of disturbance remains unclarified.

_Jesus. MOoOooVE, PLEASE._

Gaby removes one earbud, tucking a free lock of hair behind her ear out of irritation. She goes, “EXCUSE ME?” just in time for the stranger to stop and for them to avoid collision.

“I am sorry.” A thick eastern accent replies from behind the boxes. The man then takes a somewhat dignified step backwards, ending up with his back against the wall in one single and fluid motion. There’s a hint of a bow in the bending of his legs, and the thing seems to strike Gaby as fucking weird. She wouldn’t have expected such grace from the strapping piece of annoyance this man seems to be.

She hasn’t got the focus nor the time to notice the way he’s dressed – rather clumsily, one would say. Like somebody joyfully trying to fit in. Basically doing what anybody tries to do in New York, but not quite how. His jeans are impossibly tight, and look terribly worn out and rough. A loose white crop-top with a huge black 99 printed on it barely provides coverage for his ribcage, allowing the sight of a slender waist, carved out of marble or something.

Gaby’s confusion only increases when she looks up – _way up_ – to look at the stranger’s face. A piercing set of blue eyes but a soft smile, and he now stretches out one hand to her to make friends, she supposes.

 _Totally fucking convenient pal_ , Gaby thinks to herself, to be holding what must be 12 pounds of stuff with one arm. She’s more impressed by this combination of strength and elegance than she would ever admit. She lets his big hand squeeze hers, and smiles a _they’ll-fire-me-this-time-for-sure_ kind of smile. _At least my nail polish will have time to dry until I get to the shop_ , she ponders.

“Look, I must—“

“Ja Illya.” The stranger slips, a mix of his mother tongue and broken English, Gaby guesses, but she doesn’t bother to actually ask.

“Ok, sure.” Gaby bites her lip, regretting her rudeness, “I’m Gabrielle. Gaby. Nice to meet you. I’m really in a hurry right now, so…” She pretends to look at her watch but accidentally registers the time anyway. Ten minutes late.

“I move here.” Illya tries, doing his best to squeeze conversation out of three hard months of English practice.

“Terrific. Catch you later, ok? Illya, right?” She goes for a smile to make up for her rushed indifference. It seems to work, as Illya delicately reciprocates it.

“Catch you later.” Illya repeats slowly, pronouncing that combination of words for the first time in his life, but something in his cadence makes the sentence sound almost threatening. He must notice it, Gaby realizes, and that’s why he blushes lightly.

He’s not even finished when Gaby swooshes past him down the hallway. So she has a new neighbor, she realizes, as she dodges a group of black kids taking turns to breakdance on the pavement, then two fat Italian men arguing loudly, smoking cigars, spitting on the ground, and a motorcycle that wouldn’t start, a young girl passing flyers for God knows what.

 _That’s why earbuds in this neighborhood are no use, man_ , Gaby thinks to herself.

***

“You’re late again.”

Deborah, Gaby’s boss, sits on the velvet sofa of the Pink Moon’s reception as Gaby walks in. She’s a big black lady with a big heart, big hair and a big nose she likes to stick in everyone’s hot cup of tea, before actually reading the leaves.

“Yeah, sorry.” Gaby turns off the Walkmen, hangs her bag on the hanger in the corner, “I got caught up.”

“She cute, at least?” Deborah raises an eyebrow.

Gaby proceeds to untie her ponytail and tie it up again, “Deb, I _have_ a girlfriend.”

“Oh right,” Deborah brushes off with a hand, “That’s my niece. She’s _always_ breaking up with her girl.”

“Plus, it was just a guy.” Gaby walks to the desk, sinking in its huge faux-fur chair.

“Oh? But the cards did say he don’t look so bad.” Deb smiles, cheeky.

“You checked with the cards because I was like, ten minutes late?”

Deb gets up, “Practice makes perfect, my girl. I’m going now. Please don’t forget to dust off those Corinthian capitals. They’re in the back, such a waste. I think they’ll look good with the Visnu candle-holder and I don’t know, we could add a couple more beads curtains and a bed of roses all around and—“

Gaby sighs, “You’d add roses to anything.”

“And then of course they’re a load of new tarots arriving today. Have you called the electrician for that broken neon outside? It’s just bad luck. The hand is missing a middle finger.”

“The most useful one.”

Deborah brushes off Gaby’s benevolent insolence with the same twitch of the wrist as before, and heads to the door.

“You’re not forgetting anything?” Gaby suggests.

Deborah stops and turns to Gaby again, puzzled but just for a second, “Oh yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes.” She squints her eyes at nothing in particular on the ceiling, cluttered with chandeliers of every shape and size, “Your friend… You have a friend who’s in great _emotional_ pain, deep pain Gabrielle. The Pain of The Pure at Heart. And _youuu_ … just you my girl, can finally escort him through the mystery of Real Love.”

Gaby has to hold her belly not to slip off the fur of her chair from laughter. Deborah leaves in a gentle jingling of crystal chimes.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> gaby comes back home from work with a gift for her new neighbor.  
> \- do not be fooled: Gaby Has a Plan(TM)  
> \- loOoOoOots of conversation  
> \- AWKWARDNESS AWARDS NOMINATIONS for all parties involved.

Cards have been turned, incense lit and blown out, fortune told, past uncovered, palms read, spells uncast, and at 8:30 PM Gaby finally locks the door of the Pink Moon’s and heads home.

The giant owl knitted on her psychedelic drawstrings backpack is a little heavier than it was in the afternoon, and the thing makes her somewhat giggly. She thinks about Deborah’s prophecy or whatever the _hell_ that was, and she nervously bites on her finger nails as she walks down the street, only before realizing that _Fuck, red nail polish tastes like shit, and chipped nail polish looks even worse. Gaby, you dope._

The evening air smells of jasmine and used pizza cartons and car pipe smoke. She inhales the fragrance of her favorite city in the world, deep enough to be seized with a fit of coughing. Once in her building, just outside of the elevator, she hesitates on the mezzanine and then marches to the end of the hallway, stopping right outside the door that’s opposite to hers. She swings her backpack to the front so that she can rummage through its contents, and extracts a hefty little bundle wrapped in newspaper. She knocks on Illya’s door.

There’s a tender and romantic melody coming out of her broad-shouldered vis-à-vis apartment dweller’s apartment, and the honking of cars, the going of buses and the stopping of cabs outside don’t seem to damp down its passion. This, and the 95°F of this long and strange summer day sure contribute to Gaby’s heart melting a little. She hears steps approaching, or better – _thumping_ _loudly_ – behind the door, as if Illya’s was jumping towards it.

Then a click, and here he is, visibly sweating and out of breath. A pair of white thighs, waist high and calf low. A white headband, hair flowing a bit past ear-length, and a weirdly-shaped crucifix dangling from a golden chain. Illya has one hand on the door-knob, the other planted on his side. Left knee bent behind the right one, and his feet are arranged in a ceremonious position. _And quite an uncomfortable one_ , Gaby thinks. Something about this stranger makes her feel unusually welcomed anyway.

“Gabby!” Illya exclaims, his face lighting up. He continues, seizing the fact that Gaby is too puzzled to reply, “So you are not “ _in hurry_ ” no more?”

Gaby can’t help but chuckle lightly. She recollects herself, “No, yes. No! I—I realized I was very rude earlier when we… bumped into each other, and I just wanted to apologize and well…” she widens her arms to emphasize the concept, “Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess!”

_Nice job, this was about the most awkward thing you did all week, girl._

Illya looks at her, his turn now to feel disoriented. He scratches the back of his head, “Please, come in. I was making some practice, but it’s late now. Not for me, but maybe for neighbors, I disturb.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, people around here are usually quite noisy anyway.”

Her thoughts automatically go to _one particular_ _intruder_ , known to wake the whole block in the middle of just about any night. The same intruder she’s doing _all this for_ , anyway. She continues, “I brought you something, you know, for the apartment, and for good luck.”

“House-warming gift, yes? I hear American people do that.” Illya gestures her to enter, a chivalrous move Gaby had last seen from a man in a suit when she was about as tiny as a bonsai tree. The ones that have their little pots and all that. She hands Illya the wrap.

“Spasibo, Gabby.” Illya slaps his forehead lightly, squeezing his eyes shut for the slip-up, “Thank you, is what I mean.”

Gaby smiles in reply, her lips freezing as she hopes, hopes, and hopes for her – open quotes – _radar_ – close quotes – to be right this time. Which would imply, in the long run, for her to finally get some sleep. _Don’t throttle with your mind Gab, stick to the plan._

Illya’s apartment is still completely empty but a sofa and chair facing each other from opposite walls, a plastic bucket in the corner, in which drops fall from the ceiling; in the middle of the room, the cardboard boxes Gaby saw Illya carry in his arms in the afternoon, one intact and the other half emptied. Finally, an odd-looking cassette player and its heart-wrenching music rising from somewhere on the floor.

Illya sits on the bumpy old sofa with his legs crossed, unwrapping a fat blue elephant carved out of quartz. He turns it in his big hands, “This – very nice. My babushka could _kill you_ for one of these!”

He almost bites his lip. _O M I N O U S,_ Illya screams in his head, in Russian. _What the fuck, man???_ Gaby whispers in her head, in American English. They both try very hard not to stare at each other goggled-eyed, but they do. Finally, Gaby swallows, smiles, and breaks the silence.

“So you, uh… You’re Russian or something?”

“Yes, Muscovite. Please, sit?”

Although Illya gestures to the sofa, at this point Gaby feels only confident enough to drag the wobbly chair half a meter closer to him. Still, her gut feeling encourages her.

“You’re here for work?”

“Yes, I dance. But first, I defect.”

Illya realizes that Prokofiev’s _Romeo and Juliet_ is still playing from his Vesna-309. He gets up, crouches on the floor and presses PAUSE on the cassette player, “Sorry about that. Music is in my head all the time. I don’t even notice when it is on or off.”

_Which is exactly the sort of poetic shit a political traitor would say_ , Gaby reflects. She doesn’t let it distract her, but has some trouble finding the right words, “Yes, but you, uh… You just—“

Illya tilts his head to the side and looks at her, wondering how and why he must have confused her, then realizes that most neighbors don’t get informed of their neighbors’ defection to their home country on any standard evening of the week.

“I had some problems with government.” He explains, “Also, I punched the artistic director. I think you can say ‘We had a disagreement’.”

Gaby shifts quietly in her chair, “Yeah, I think you could say that.”

“But he punched me first!” Illya adds, trying to reassure her, probably failing. He scratches his head once more.

Gaby sighs, shocked at herself for getting into any of this to begin with, but on some level, _too entertained_ to give up just yet, “This must be your first time in New York?”

“First and last, I hope”, Illya bares his teeth in a suave smile, “I plan to stay in America for very long time. I just don’t know anybody here.”

“Well, here we are!” Gaby chuckles nervously.

“ _Da, ‘here we are’_. I think this is good enough reason for a toast. Let me just—“

Illya skips to the kitchen in graceful strides, emerging with two little glasses and a bottle of something Gaby fears to identify as vodka. He pours the thick transparent liquid for her and then for himself, “ _Za Vstrechu_ , Gabby! To our meeting.”

“Zah Stretch you”, Gaby tries poorly, and downs the vodka.

“Well, you tell me something about yourself now, yes?”

Gaby goes on and on and on about her father, her mother; about moving to New York when she was about eleven years old. About how she changes five jobs a year _minimum_ , and how she can do almost fucking anything.

“Excuse the ‘ _fucking_.’”

“Excused.”

She can now fix cars, motorbikes, sinks, roofs; plant and grow every kind of plant, vegetable and flower on this not-enough-green Earth; paint, sculpt, work with clay. Bang the drums, strum the guitar. Prepare traditional Vietnamese and Brazilian dishes. Eat those and dozens more. Speak Chinese, French, Arabic but still not Russian, read all of these and the palm of a hand too.

“I can only dance.” Illya shrugs.

About how Gaby met the love of her life in New York, and how they fight over every little thing sometimes, and how they don’t even need to talk to understand each other some other times.

“She’s a fucking weirdo though. Excuse the ‘ _f_ —“

“It’s ok.”

“Anyway, want me to read your hand?”

Illya nods, only slightly amused, and they sit on the sofa in front of each other. Gaby takes Illya’s left hand in hers and squints her eyes. She dramatically clears her throat.

“Your heart line – it is somewhat… short… Short, but not too much. And wavy. This means you’re not very interested in romance, are you Illya? And at the same time, you’re not very committed. _Many, many, many_ lovers,” Gaby continues, a touch judgy, raising her gaze to look at Illya’s reaction, “and you do not intend to establish any serious relationship with anyone.”

_BAD_ , Gaby thinks. _BAD FOR ME, HIM #1, HIM #2, AND FOR MY PLAN._

Illya frowns, visibly lost, “That is strange.”

“That isn’t true?” Gaby investigates, one eyebrow raised.

“ _Niet_ , not true. Maybe – true a little. I am interested in romance, but I,” Illya sighs, “I have lot of work to do. So, there is no one right now. Very difficult for me to find… partner to trust in Moscow. And so, I only trust people for short time, but never completely.”

“Oh.” Gaby almost emits a sigh of relief, “Russian ballerinas are _that hard_ to deal with?”

Illya almost blushes, “I don’t really deal with Russian ballerinas, but they often want to deal with me.”

Gaby has no idea where conversation is going, but her radar starts spinning, and she pats Illya’s knee, trying to be encouraging, “Well, I’m sure you’ll find somebody out there. Anyway, where were we—“

_“GAAABY!”_

_“Ga – a – a – a – a – a – b – y!”_

_“Hey Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaby!”_

Both Illya and the invoked unfortunate turn their heads in the door’s direction, to the hallway where the weepy, whiny, pestering, familiar, alarm-clock-worthy and Manhattan-born yells are being produced. Then Illya looks at Gaby for answers, but she doesn’t reply.

_Fucking Napoleon._

“Give me a minute.” Gaby tells Illya, simulating the resigned acceptance of a martyr.

Deep in her heart, she congratulates herself for her timing and her strategy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm confident that Illya's english will get better over the weeks, but not just yet.  
> stay tuned for napoleon's DRAMATIC ENTRANCE!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which:  
> \- napoleon shows up DRUNK and UNINVITED  
> \- gaby and illya have a late night spaghetti session  
> as simple as that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is mostly domestic stuff for now, but the dudes are gonna get OUTDOORS soon!  
> leave it to napoleon's $$$ for them to have a good time!!!   
> will that be enough? BETS ARE OPEN MY GUYS

“Just a minute,” Gaby repeats as she gets up and sprints to the door.

Illya follows her with his gaze and utters something that lacks sentiment, something along the lines of “ _Okay_ ” and “ _Korosho_ ”, Russian for “ _Very well, go ahead, it’s not like this is my house anyway._ ” – maybe both and at once, but still below his breath.

Through the eyehole, Gaby sighs at the sight and sound of Napoleon, precarious on his feet, banging a fist on the wrong door, relentless in his first-born and sole-heir type of insistence, calling her name over and over again. He swings his arms about dramatically, impatient, spins around his intoxicated axis only to lean on the walls for support.

Gaby quits peeking and dives in for action. She opens the door of Illya’s apartment, hissing, “Napoleon! You’re _drunk_ as _shit_!”

That seems to attract Napoleon’s attention, and to finally placate his yelling. He turns around and replies in a loud voice, overly ceremonious, “I’M _OoOoONLY_ DRUNKKK AS…” pounding his chest with a flat palm, “… _MYSELF_ , MISS GABRIELLA.”

Then of course, Napoleon breaks the quite histrionic character he’s chosen for tonight. He proceeds to let out a single, dramatic sniff, wiping his left cheekbone with the back of his hand.

From the sofa, Illya readjusts, legs crossed in a pre-dancing, warming-up position, stretching his neck in the direction of the threshold, trying to catch sight of whatever, _whoever_ , is going on at his doorstep. He has no trouble identifying the source of chaos, as the figure easily overbears Gaby’s both in weight and height.

The disrupter must be about his own age, maybe a couple years older; surely a little more muscular, slightly shorter than him. Dramatically darker, although fair-skinned. A white cotton sweater thrown over his shoulders, its sleeves lazily knotted together; a bright pink polo with the collar popped, white dress pants. Suddenly, Illya realizes he is barefoot _and_ bare-chested; he crosses his arms over his chest instinctively, as if it were enough to cover himself.

He proceeds with his analysis. The individual appears to be poor-sighted, considering the pair of gold rimmed glasses he’s wearing. Definitely louder than him. Totally drunk. Illya registers these things in order, coldly, as if he was filing a complaint.

“Do you need hand?” Illya offers Gaby, genuinely worried.

“No, I—it’s under contr—“

“It’s okay, I won’t…” a sniffle, “stay long,” Napoleon intervenes, making his entrance without asking for anybody’s permission. He’s used to that. He sinks in the sofa next to Illya, hands in his lap, eyes looking around the room but never at its owner, not even by mistake.

“Nice place you got here.” Napoleon bites his lip, “Alex dumped me.”

Illya looks at Gaby for help. Any help at all. Gaby looks back at Illya, a weak smile, then Napoleon.

“Alex? The Norwegian plumber?”

“Alex…” Napoleon’s head falls in his hands, “Alex, the _Swedish bartender_.”

“Oh—“

Napoleon’s head rises again, tear-streaks on his face, “I waited for him for THREE HOURS. You know what it’s like to wait _three hours_ outside the Studio?”

“Clearly, Napoleon, I don’t.”

“He stood _me_ up! Everyone was looking at me. I looked like _some bum_ with NO entitlement to EVEN **_go_** through security. Well, my dear Alex, I’ve been to the Studio _countless_ times, and I could’ve been your pass there, your first—but, but you—“

Napoleon rises to his feet, now openly crying as he walks around the room. Gaby walks slowly to him, sympathetically patting him on the shoulder, encouraging him with little “ _Come on, Napoleon, come on_ ”s. Perhaps not sympathetically enough, she considers, but the whole empathy deal somehow seems to get a little harder to tackle when _this shit_ happens about seven times a month.

“Well, some men are not to be trusted.” Illya says quietly, matter-of-factly, interrupting the scene.

Gaby catches her own breath, staring in apprehension at them staring at each other; she almost skips a beat, but beats her lashes twice more than necessary to compensate.

Except that Napoleon doesn’t even look in Illya’s direction. Instead, he finds the vodka bottle unattended, lifts it off the chair and takes a long swig out of it. _AAAAAAAH_ , he goes. In the process, the sweater unties languidly from his shoulders and lands on the floor.

Gaby sighs deeply, her gaze back to Illya. She whispers an apology, to which Illya promptly replies, in the same hushed tone of voice as hers, “Do not worry, this – not the first drunk man I see in my life. Should I make coffee? I bought some American coffee today.”

Gaby nods. With this, Illya walks into the kitchen, first door on the right. He grabs a loose yellow tank-top with holes along the neck, and puts it on. He can hear the thuds of Napoleon just kicking off his shoes, alternating his rants to Shakespeare’s verses recited deliriously.

“You know, Gaby, I think I really – I thought… it could’ve worked between me and Alex. He had such pretty eyes, oh, and those Margaritas he made me? And he only cheated on me twice.”

“Napoleon, you have been dating him for like, two weeks. Plus, he didn’t dump you, he just stoo—“

“ _COME!!! O Comeee, my life's **delight**! Let me not -- in languor… pine! LOVE LOVES **NO** DELAY—“_ 

“You’re overreacting. As usu—“

“I dare contradict you, miss Gabrielle,” Napoleon turns ceremonious again, “I’m taking ALL THIS” a gesture, his index pointed at the ceiling, rotating, “QUITE—“ he spins around his axis, but finds balance by widening his arms, “Quite WELL, I dare say. _O come, and take from me the PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN.”_

“Napoleon, _please_!” Gaby hisses.

Napoleon falls on his ass on the floor, resuming the sobbing, _“The pain of--of b-being, depr…r..r…ived of THEEE!”_

“Jesus.” Gaby rushes to him once more, crouching on the floor.

“If I can’t have him, then I won’t have anybody else. This is it for me.” As he says this, Napoleon shakes his hands about dramatically, then makes them into fists.

Very Italian, Gaby notes. _What a fucking melodrama._

“You said the very same thing when Josh broke up with you—“ Gaby tries, compassionately, but sounding more like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

“GABRIELLE!”

“And Paul, and Daniel, and Jason—“

“YOU’RE SO _CRUEL_ TO ME!”

“Napoleon, I only think that—“

“Is he okay?” Illya interrupts, head peeking out of the kitchen door.

“He almost never is.”

Napoleon rises back to his feet, not falling backwards only thanks to Gaby’s support, “I’M GOING TO BED!”

And although the absurdity and dubious politeness of the exclamation, nobody dares to oppose. Napoleon seems to notice it, and he wipes his face before walking out of his dress pants, joining the sweater on the floor. Illya watches the scene in bewilderment. First day in New York, and a whiny stranger with expensive taste in clothes and _terrible, unfortunate_ taste in men, undresses in the middle of his apartment. It usually takes at least three weeks in Moscow, with someone you know.

 _“Are you serious?”_ Gaby questions Napoleon’s etiquette, the bridge of her nose between thumb and index.

The situation evidently got out of hand. Her hand, hands – _both of them_ \-- the hand of the Statue of Liberty for that matter, the hand of God. This is NOT what she had in mind. She underlines  NOT. _Disastrous_ , Gaby. Just about _cataclysmic._

“Don’t worry,” Napoleon continues between sniffles, “You can sleep on the sofa.”

And so, he miraculously finds his way to the bedroom, theatrically dragging his feet and holding his head, and collapses half-naked on Illya’s bed.

“I think he does not need coffee now,” says Illya, holding a smoking black cup. He walks out of the kitchen, still puzzled but – to Gaby’s surprise – extremely cool about it all. Nothing seems to bother this man, she thinks. She watches him shrug, take a cautious sip, and wince a little. In this order.

“Guess you’re right,” Gaby replies, a forced smile on her lips. She plants her hands on her hips, trying to find the words, “So uh, it’s not a problem if—“

“He can stay here, I don’t sleep tonight. I have work to do, dancing. Oh, in silence of course. And it’s only 1:00 AM.”

Such disarming good-manners, Gaby observes. It’s like, punk-rock, how nice this guy is about stuff.

“But uh, you’ll surely need to eat something, right? We could order take-away, or I can make spaghetti.”

“Is that traditional American food?”

Gaby scratches her head, a smile that’s almost pained on her face, “Well, yeah. Sort of.”

***

Gaby leaves at 2:30 AM, after an impromptu spaghetti and canned tomato sauce cooking lesson.

“Just dig in your fork and then… twist. Yeah, that’s good. Keep twisting.”

“Like pirouette.”

“Whatever.”

They eat almost in silence, the only sound in the apartment being Napoleon’s snoring. Sometimes the snoring gets louder and weirder, and after a while the awkward looks and perplexed gazes turn into muffled snorting.

At 2:00 AM on a New York morning – his first one -- Illya’s heart feels at ease. There’s something quite familiar about Gaby, and she probably doesn’t even suspect it. She doesn’t seem to have any more interest in him than what she shows, which is the equivalent, Illya calculates approximately, of that of a 70 year old bronchitic mechanic from Siberia. It’s a quite soothing feeling. That other _inconvenient_ in his bedroom though… he’s not so sure about him.

Gaby apologizes twice, three, four more times before shutting the door behind her back.

“I really thought – I usually can handle him,” she only half-lies.

And then, in the living room, careful not to make too much noise -- Illya pirouettes his way through the night. Afterwards, he does sleep on the sofa from 5:30 to 9:00 AM.

At 9:30, after a keen study of the cracks on the ceiling, he begins his stretching routine. He needs to finish unpacking. And he needs to buy clothes. And he needs to get _that part_ today.

Left knee, right knee, right foot, left foot. Arms, neck, shoulders. All warmed up, he resumes his practice.

At 11:30, he stops in the middle of an _attitude derniere_ to greet the sound of a pair of dizzy and unsteady feet stepping out of the bedroom.

“Oh, you’re up.” Illya says politely, no particular emotion in his voice.

It takes Napoleon an eternity to reply.

**Author's Note:**

> my first chapters are all super-short, but i promise to get better!!!  
> see you around ;-)


End file.
